Minimally invasive medical techniques are intended to reduce the amount of tissue that is damaged during interventional procedures, thereby reducing patient recovery time, discomfort, and deleterious side effects. Such minimally invasive techniques may be performed through natural orifices in a patient anatomy or through one or more surgical incisions. Through these natural orifices or incisions clinicians may insert interventional instruments (including surgical, diagnostic, therapeutic, or biopsy instruments) to reach a target tissue location. To reach the target tissue location, a minimally invasive interventional instrument may navigate natural or surgically created passageways in anatomical systems such as the lungs, the colon, the intestines, the kidneys, the heart, the circulatory system, or the like. Current interventional instruments are either manually controlled or robotically controlled. In manually controlled systems, a clinician controls the insertion of the interventional instrument and the manipulation of the distal end of the interventional instrument in one or more degrees of freedom. Manually controlled systems rely primarily upon the clinician to navigate a complex network of anatomical passageways to reach a procedure location. Robotically controlled interventional instruments allow a remote user to use advanced imaging and navigation techniques to robotically control the interventional instrument. With robotically controlled systems, the insertion of the instrument and/or movement of the distal end of the surgical instrument in one or more of degrees of freedom may be operated with robotic control. For certain complex interventional procedures, clinicians may prefer a hybrid approach, in which a single interventional instrument may be operated with manual control for a portion of the procedure and with robotic control for other portions of the procedure. Improved systems and methods are needed for providing manual and robotic control to a common interventional instrument.